Something Girl
by the.goal.is.greatness
Summary: Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love. [Fakir x Ahiru]
1. Chapter 01 Girl

**Title:** Something Girl  
 **Genre:** Romance  
 **Rating:** K+ – T  
 **Pairing:** Fakir x Ahiru  
 **Spoilers:** N/A  
 **Summary:** Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.  
 **Word Count:** 820  
 **Warnings:** One-shot collection

 **Disclaimer:** Not mine. Summary belongs to Honore de Balzac

 **A/N:** I love ballet. This anime makes me so sad I didn't start when I was young. Hope I get all the terms correct.

* * *

One upon a time, there was a knight who feared death. He was trapped in a story not of his own design, with characters not of his own world, and he feared the outcome of his life. Little did he know that somewhere out there, was a princess who would make him feel alive. Little did he know that there was a girl inside this story would change his life forever.

* * *

It was little things at first, so little that even Fakir could not first say when it had began. All he knew was that one day, Ahiru was this annoyingly, flighty little girl, always trailing around Mytho when she shouldn't be, always popping up in the most unexpected and least desired situations and the next day … the next day Fakir was watching her in a line with a dozen other girls, and _noticing_ her.

The epaule derriere was a simple maneuver, one leg extended with a pointed toe on the ground, arms outspread – one to the front, one to the back. It was basic, easy, a beginner's position. But… for some unknown reason, Fakir was fascinated in minute things that he had never seen before.

Though unsteady, there was grace in the arch of Ahiru's pointed toe, in the slender wrists as they extended from her body as elegant as any swan's wings. Though her mouth was set in a concentrated frown and her brow was beaded with sweat, her eyes were bright and glittered with determination. Though much smaller than her classmates, her legs were long, her waist tiny and there were sculpted features hidden behind her rounded child cheeks.

Fakir blinked, forcing himself to slowly let her eyes trail over the other students in the class – unobtrusive, smooth, no one could notice where his thoughts had strayed to.

A commotion drew his eyes back to Ahiru, who was now sprawled across the floor, legs akimbo, rubbing a quickly forming bruise on her forehead. Her teary eyes were downcast, no doubt embarrassed, but even as Fakir watched, those lids lifted, and she glanced from under lowered lashes across the room –

He glanced to the side and frowned.

Mytho was performing his own series of exercises along the adjacent wall, a line of several young men set up to mirror the young women across from them. The prodigy was completely oblivious to Ahiru's plights, only lowering his limbs and tuning in when loud, raucous laughter exploded from several of the students. Even as Fakir watched, Ahiru noticed Mytho turn to see what the class was laughing at, and her face flushed an alarming shade of scarlet, before she shot to her feet, performing her routine set of positions with a speed that was most certainly not productive, exclaiming all the while that she was fine.

Fakir turned away again. No matter. It was of no concern of his.

* * *

But that not-concern of his stayed with him, the image appearing at the most inconsistent moments. It was made all the more apparent and irritating by the fact that Ahiru herself was everywhere. She trailed after Mytho obsessively, but would dissolve into a puddle of stammering and blushes the moment the boy returned one of her glances or spoke to her.

It was annoying.

It was annoying because Mytho was meant to be practicing, not because it irritated Fakir that she kept focusing her attention on someone who clearly didn't notice her affections. It was annoying because Fakir like peace and quiet, of which Ahiru was neither, not because after they spoke Fakir couldn't get the sound of her voice out of his head for days. It was annoying because Fakir did not want to waste time on Ahiru, and yet, for some reason he was.

"Fakir! Fakir"

With a disgusted sigh at his luck, Fakir turned and neatly sidestepped Ahiru when she would have run directly into him. "What?"

"Have you seen Mytho today?" Bright eyes stared up at him earnestly.

"I see him every day." She continued staring at him expectantly, but he offered no more information, simply stared at her until she squirmed in discomfort under his gaze. When she reached up to brush the hair out of her face, Fakir noticed with disquiet that her hand was pale and graceful, her hair soft, her skin smooth. He frowned.

"Um, okay." She fidgeted some more. "Well, bye then Fakir!" And she ran off.

With an introspective look in his green eyes, he watched her go.


	2. Chapter 02 Brave

**Title:** Something Girl  
 **Genre:** Romance  
 **Rating:** K+ – T  
 **Pairing:** Fakir x Ahiru  
 **Spoilers:** N/A  
 **Summary:** Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.  
 **Word Count:** 544  
 **Warnings:** One-shot collection

 **Disclaimer:** Not mine. Summary belongs to Honore de Balzac

 **A/N:** I love ballet. This anime makes me so sad I didn't start when I was young. Hope I get all the terms correct.

* * *

She is brave and strong, while he is terrified and weak.

Fakir would never admit any of those things to Ahiru, but keeping them inside does not make them any less true to the world. Fakir couldn't protect the townspeople from getting drawn into this mess, couldn't keep Mytho here, couldn't keep Ahiru in the form he knew her as. Instead Mytho was gone, and Ahiru – bright Ahiru, who was as cheerful and she was annoying, as talkative as she was loud, was a duck.

He listed through his classes, now full of reading and writing rather than dancing and ballet. His thoughts were occupied only with his failures, only with the worry that he wouldn't be able to save the one person that was left here for him to protect: Ahiru. Could he truly write her back into human form? Could he truly make her on the outside, what she was on the inside? Turn an ugly duckling back into a clumsy girl?

He wasn't sure he could.

And yet, Ahiru… she was nothing but optimism, nothing but light, nothing but cheer. She never wavered from her undying faith that he, Fakir, would write her back to what she considered her true form. Though whether she meant the girl form of Ahiru or the maiden of Princess Tutu, Fakir couldn't say. He mostly knew her as Ahiru, and it was to this form he strove to return her. But how to do that? How to simply use pen and paper and words from his own mind to do something so magical? He wasn't under duress, there were no lives at stake, not really – so how to force the magic of words to take place…

"Fakir! Fakir!"

Pulling a branch away from before his face, he glanced up, almost falling back in shock when Ahiru came at his face in a flutter of feathers and water. "A – Ahiru! Calm down!" She fluttered around his head, wings pumping furiously, as she managed to make his way to her pond and settle himself and his writing supplies at its edge.

"How's it coming, Fakir?" Her big eyes, too large and too human than any bird's eyes had any right to be, stared up at him earnestly. "Have you written anything awesome yet?"

He sighed, running a hand down the cover of his notebook. He knew without opening it what it contained. Line after line of beginnings, all crossed and scratched out and discarded. Never good enough. Never the _right_ words. "No. nothing yet."

Her silence only lasted a single heartbeat, her expression never wavering. "That's okay! I'm sure the right words will just come to you!" She pat his knee with one golden wing. "Don't feel down!"

And Fakir smiled, because a little bit, a little every day, she made him feel braver, too.


	3. Chapter 03 Company

**Title:** Something Girl  
 **Genre:** Romance  
 **Rating:** K+ – T  
 **Pairing:** Fakir x Ahiru  
 **Spoilers:** N/A  
 **Summary:** Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.  
 **Word Count:** 788  
 **Warnings:** One-shot collection

 **Disclaimer:** Not mine. Summary belongs to Honore de Balzac

 **A/N:** I love ballet. This anime makes me so sad I didn't start when I was young. Hope I get all the terms correct.

* * *

It has been weeks – months – and Ahiru is still a duck. But her optimism hasn't wavered, and, at times, Fakir wonders if it is draining to always be so incessantly cheerful, to always be so full of energy. She never seems to have those moments where she isn't sure what will happen – because she knows, she _knows_ , Fakir will return her to human form.

He spends his free time beside her pond, trying to write, or doing classwork. At one time he might have thought it strange that he was actively seeking out Ahiru's company, but, when she isn't being spastic, she isn't bad. She always asks questions, and, for a writer, that sometimes (a lot of times, if he was being honest) helped him knock down his writer's block and finish a story or assignment. And even when she wasn't talking, simply watching her took his mind off his troubles.

"I don't want to be too out of shape when I'm back to normal, Fakir!" He glanced up at her, mouth quirking in a half-smile. "So I make sure to practice everyday!" The tiny smile in the corner of his mouth widened as he watched a duck work its way through the basic ballet positions. "I don't want everyone in class to be ahead of me!"

As Ahiru strove to prove her abilities to Fakir, she slid into a passe, and for the long moment that she managed to hold the position, Fakir felt the smile slip from his face in shock.

Ahiru was a duckling, she was tiny and flighty and graceless with her large head and feet, her too-small-for-her-body wings. But for a moment, Fakir saw something more in her, something that had grown in her without his notice. Her wings were longer – extending out from her body like graceful billowing fabric. The slope of her brow was more refined, more elegant. Her limbs were beginning to fit her body, she seemed more at ease and more natural, more put together now.

Fakir was struck with the question of how long, exactly, did ducks live? If he waited too long to return her to human form, would she age as a duck – and thereby be returned to human form as a middle aged woman? Or as a crone, decades and decades older than her classmates?

"Ah!" He was started from his thoughts at a cry and a splash, and when he glanced up he saw that Ahiru had tumbled into the pond and had emerged from the water a sputtering mess, mud and weeds dripping from her head. Without intending to do so, he began to laugh.

"Fakir!" Ahiru fumbled from the pond in bedraggled indignation. "Don't laugh!"

But he couldn't help it. She looked ridiculous, frowning at him, muck sliding from her beak, face dark with pond scum so the only thing visible were her bright, bright eyes. He set down his pen and notebook as she ruffled her feathers and washed them clean. "I'm sorry, Ahiru." He watched her for another long moment, until she deemed herself clean and situated herself to look up at him. "Come here." She stared at him in distrust. "Come here, I just want to show you what you're doing wrong."

They spent that afternoon, and many like it, in much the same manner. Fakir was much better at ballet than Ahiru had ever been, so he coached her, as much as he could coach a duck. In return, Ahiru talked. She talked about stories she had heard, adventures she had had as Princess Tutu, dreams she had. And Fakir ate them up. With her imagination, and his words, he spilled forth stories like a river spills water into the sea.

Conversations about ballet and writing turned into conversations about their families, their friends, their hopes, their plans. Just conversation. Company that his life had been sorely lacking these past weeks, and, if he was being true to himself, it was a type of company he had never had. Mytho wasn't much for conversation, his head was always somewhere else. But with Ahiru, conversation was as easy as breathing.

He began to look forward to just spending time with her, basking in her company. And the more relaxed he become, the easier the words began to come.


	4. Chapter 04 Naked

**Title:** Something Girl  
 **Genre:** Romance  
 **Rating:** K+ – T  
 **Pairing:** Fakir x Ahiru  
 **Spoilers:** N/A  
 **Summary:** Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.  
 **Word Count:** 827  
 **Warnings:** One-shot collection

 **Disclaimer:** Not mine. Summary belongs to Honore de Balzac

 **A/N:** I love ballet. This anime makes me so sad I didn't start when I was young. Hope I get all the terms correct.

* * *

The splash of ice cold water against his face does absolutely nothing to dissipate the glaringly obvious blush that is stained across his cheeks. Turning off the water, he raised trembling hands to his face, rubbing at the color, trying to will it away, but it did no good. It had been days since the incident that brought this on, and just when Fakir thought he had his wayward emotions under control, one thought, one image that was seared into his brain, would surface and set his face on fire for hours afterward.

 _He had it! This might really work this time! He'd written a story that might just do it! Fakir was scribbling furiously, pen moving too fast to see, in an effort to get the last few lines out._

 _There._

 _With a harsh period slammed to the end of the page, he was finished. The story was already in motion, if it was working. Now he had his own part to play, his own verses to perform. He gathered up his supplies and left the library, heading out to Ahiru's pond. He hurried, almost running, wanting to see the outcome. If he had timed his writing correctly, as soon as he pulled away the last branch and walked next to the water, Ahiru would –_

 _POOF_

 _There was a puff of smoke, atop the water, and Fakir squinted in the mist, trying to make out what was emerging –_

 _A girl? Yes!_

 _She stood slowly, confused, hesitant, as if she wasn't sure it was real and wasn't simply another daydream. For a moment, Fakir was struck by how her face had changed since the last time he had seen it. There was more Princess Tutu than Ahiru in her expression now, in her features. His fear that her aging as a bird might be mirrored in her as a girl seemed to be founded, but luckily it had only been a few months, she wasn't that much older. But her features were more refined, there was less baby-ness to her cheeks, her cheekbones were just starting to be prominent. Eyes that once looked too large and too childish for her face, looked like beautiful doe eyes – soulful, worldly – and she glanced around her under long rimmed lashes in shock. When she reached up to press a startled hand to her lips, the limb was as pale and graceful as a swan's neck – a prima ballerina movement._

 _Fakir opened his mouth to call out to her, but the greeting only emerged as a strangled noise when Ahiru stood further from the water and the knight realized that she was as naked as a bird._

Just the thought of it again sent the heat rushing back into his cheeks, and he hastily doused his face with more freezing water.

It was useless. No matter how hard he tried to remove the image from his mind, it was seared there – as strongly as if it had been chiseled into the back of his eyelids. How could he forget the sight of all those endless miles of pale, pale skin – soft and beaded with water? How could he forget the sight of shoulders emerging from the mist like rounded mountains – mountains that swelled and morphed into snowy breasts? How could he forget the flat stomach, the tapered hips, the infinite length of legs?

A groan wrenched itself from his lips as he slumped back against his bathroom wall and slid to the floor, head in his hands.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), Ahiru's transformation only lasted that one searing moment, and she was, with a glance up at Fakir and another pop, a duck once more. She fluttered over to him, exited and overjoyed that he was almost able to turn her back to human. She seemed not to notice him slump to the ground, shaking hand over his mouth, face beet red. She was all aglow with their almost success, _his_ almost success.

He had left in a hurry, hadn't been back in days, couldn't bring himself to look Ahiru in the face – see her disappointment, his embarrassment.

With a weary sigh, he shook off his remorse, and stood (steadfastly ignoring his reflection). It was time to move on, time to finish what he had almost achieved and return Ahiru to human for good. His writing was almost perfect.

Now if only he could focus on the words he was writing and not the image of the girl he was writing them for.


	5. Chapter 05 Grace

**Title:** Something Girl  
 **Genre:** Romance  
 **Rating:** K+ – T  
 **Pairing:** Fakir x Ahiru  
 **Spoilers:** N/A  
 **Summary:** Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.  
 **Word Count:** 780  
 **Warnings:** One-shot collection

 **Disclaimer:** Not mine. Summary belongs to Honore de Balzac

 **A/N:** I love ballet. This anime makes me so sad I didn't start when I was young. Hope I get all the terms correct.

* * *

It took three more weeks before Fakir finally had the right words, the words that would transform Ahiru, the words that would work magic. And this time, Fakir had been prepared with a jacket and a change of clothes.

It had taken surprisingly little to finesse her way back into class – Ahiru had the ability to speak so vehemently and quickly and for long that people just tended to zone her out, only coming to at the end of her conversation and automatically agreeing to whatever she was saying. So no one really knew what her explanation had been, but they were all too afraid to ask her to repeat the story, because they didn't want to be held hostage by her tangents for an hour.

At first Fakir had thought it would be odd, with Ahiru being a girl again, that it would be strange sitting idly by her side as man and woman, that the comradery they had shared at her pond would vanish like fading ripples. But, if anything, it was easier. He could look into her eyes as she spoke, see the meaning in things, the emotions. They could sit in a café while he wrote, or the library. He could write in the practice room while she floated around him in various positions.

He found that his worry that their conversation would fizzle and die was extremely _un_ founded. Ahiru seemed more full of life than ever before; she dragged Fakir around everywhere, revisiting old, familiar places with a nostalgic happiness and exploring new places with childish glee. It was refreshing. It was…

Fakir frowned, searching for the right word.

"Fakir look!"

Endearing.

He watched her practically skip over to the grand piano set at the side of Practice Room 4, a room rarely used by the younger classes. She pushed a few keys, grinning widely at the notes echoing around the high-chambered room. He wondered when her qualities had transformed from annoying to appealing, when those parts of her that had once made him frown and mutter, now make him smile and sigh. When had she gone from being that-girl-Ahiru to being _Ahiru_ – who laughed at everything, who could always make him forget his troubles, who found joy in everything, even in him?

The pattering of feet made him glance up, and he realized that, as he had daydreamed about the past, Ahiru had stripped down to her leotard and donned her ballet shoes. The sight of that much tightly concealed skin still made Fakir flush, made him remember his first foray into returning her to girlhood – the skin tight clothing all the more alluring because he knew, _he knew_ , what lay beneath it. He knew he left her practicing abruptly sometimes for that very reason, knew it made her wonder what was wrong.

But at the moment, Ahiru was all focus, all calm resolve, as she rose up on point and gave one brief turn. She was still new to such an advanced move, but she took great delight in practicing it every chance she got.

As Fakir watched, she began to practice something he'd seen Princess Tutu perform on occasion, and he knew she was imaging her alter ego in her mind at this moment. She performed better that way sometimes, as if knowing she had done it then proved that she could do it now. Even as he stared at her, he could see a subtle transformation overtake her. Her shoulders drew back, spine poised and arched. Her legs lifted, almost on point, her arms were extended from her body like graceful wings. Her mouth loosened, her eyes softened, her chin tilted up. As he watched, she performed a step perfect grand jete.

Mouth dropped open in astonished surprise, Fakir could only stare. Her lines were perfect, the best he had ever seen from her. Her long legs extended in mid-air in a split, arms outstretched, fingers and wrists relaxed and fluid, face jubilant and triumphant.

She was every inch a prima ballerina.

When she landed and turned to smile at him, joyful and delighted, eyes bright with success, Fakir felt his heart stutter and skip a beat. And when it picked up again it thundered in his ears like a thousand wings.


	6. Chapter 06 Love

**Title:** Something Girl  
 **Genre:** Romance  
 **Rating:** K+ – T  
 **Pairing:** Fakir x Ahiru  
 **Spoilers:** N/A  
 **Summary:** Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.  
 **Word Count:** 760  
 **Warnings:** One-shot collection

 **Disclaimer:** Not mine. Summary belongs to Honore de Balzac

 **A/N:** I love ballet. This anime makes me so sad I didn't start when I was young. Hope I get all the terms correct.

* * *

Days go by, then weeks, and Fakir still cannot shake the feelings that encompass him when Ahiru smiles at him, bright like the sun and joyous in his company. He feels equal parts terror and excitement, fear and elation, and he cannot fathom why.

Why does he still flush at a single glimpse of legs – long and pale and lean, looking soft as silk? Why does his breath hitch as she throws back her head to laugh, revealing the smooth column of her throat? Why does his heartbeat thunder in his ears at the smallest glance of her eyes from under long, sooty lashes?

"Fakir! Where are – oomph!"

When Ahiru ran around the corner in the library, she clearly wasn't expecting Fakir to be standing directly in her path, because she crashed into him, knocking the air from his lungs in a whoosh, sending them both tumbling backwards. Fakir instinctively reached out to steady her, hands gripping her waist, but clumsy Ahiru tried to pull herself steady by yanking on the bookshelf. She only succeeding in knocking the pair of them even more off balance, as she wound up yanking Fakir forward into her, sending them, and a stack of books, tumbling downwards.

As they were falling, Fakir wasn't really thinking much besides the obvious: Don't hurt Ahiru when you fall on top of her. Man, I'm glad the library is empty this late. This is going to hurt. But then they smacked into the ground and he felt all the breath leave him for a completely different reason.

Ahiru is sprawled underneath him, hair undone and wild, falling over the floor like ribbons of fire. His hands are still on her waist, and hers are fisted in the front of his shirt. Their legs are tangled impossibly together. Her eyes are impossibly wide and, for once, she is quiet, simply staring up at him in a tentative and expectant silence. It feels natural to be laying there above her, easy. It feels… perfect.

 _Dear God, I think I love her…_

Barely had the thought crossed his mind before he leaned down and covered the scant few inches between their faces, pressing his lips to her. It is awkward, his eyes are pressed tightly closed, though he can still feel her stare from her wide-open gaze. Their kiss is just a press of closed lips, nothing more. Fakir had almost resigned himself to the fact that he had essentially ruined their friendship and made to move back, when he felt just the barest brush of her lips moving back against his.

A groan wrenched itself from his chest and he sank into her, pressing his lips frantically back against hers, hands roaming from her waist, one settling on the curve of her spine to lift her closer, the other fisting in her hair. He almost crowed with victory when he felt her hands on his chest clench, then pull him closer. How had it taken so long for him to realize this? He loved her!

He loved her exuberant outlook on life, how nothing could dampen her spirits, how nothing could diminish her joy.

He loved her smile, the wide, cheek-splitting, sparkling joy of it, the one that always made him want to smile back.

He loved her gentle grace that showed up at the strangest moments.

He loved her laugh. Her hair. Her legs. Her lips.

Everything.

With a keening cry, he pulled himself away, forehead pressed against her, panting against her mouth, forcing himself to pull her even closer, to pull her so close there was nothing between them, skin-to-skin. He arched into her instinctively at the image and Ahiru mewled from beneath him, the sound jolting something deep inside him.

"Ahiru…" Her name was a sigh.

"F- Fakir… I…"

"I love you." He hadn't planned on saying that. It just sort of, popped out. He froze, cringing, waiting for her reply.

"Oh." Here comes the dismissal. "Good! Me, too!"

His eyes opened, and he found Ahiru was smiling that jaw-cracking smile of hers at him, eyes soft and happy, perfectly at ease, perfectly content…

Perfect.


End file.
